Blackrock author signs book deal
Blackrock native Estelle Birdy has signed a book deal to have her debut novel ‘Ravelling’ published by Lilliput Press as joint winner at the Irish Writers’ Centre 2020 Novel Fair.
It’s a huge achievement for the Dublin based writer who has always loved words. ‘Life-changing’ is how she describes it. Words trip of her tongue and dance off her keyboard, and it’s clear that she loves to tell a story.
She has, she says, loved writing since she studied English at St Vincent’s Secondary School, first with Joan Kerley and then with Martin Kierans. She remembers the latter with particular fondness. ‘He was the kind of teacher who suited me as I didn’t take direction very well - he just got the best out of everyone.’
Despite her love for English, Estelle went to UCD to study law. In retrospect, she says it wasn’t the best choice, and although she got her degree without putting in a lot of effort, she soon realised it wasn’t the career for her. Not coming from a legal background didn’t help, and she embarked on a number of ventures, including making jewellery which she sold from a suitcase in Grafton Street
A year in France working for an Irish marketing company as part of the IBEC European Orientation Programme For Graduates, set her on the path of a successful career in recruitment, HR, website management, event management, and communications.
She set up her own company and decided to work part-time after the birth of her second child. The beauty of being self-employed meant she was able to do different things as well, including teaching English to immigrants and training as a yoga teacher.
‘I’ve been a yoga teacher since 2004.’ It was her desire to share her passion for yoga with others which led to her going back to writing.
‘I would always have written and I started dabbling in writing again and was on the editorial team for a magazine called Ms.Chief,’ she says. ‘I have a copy of the magazine so I know it existed!’
She began blogging and writing on her yoga website, and was invited by the author of a widely read blog to write for that. Gradually she began entering literary competitions and was delighted to when one of her stories made the long-list for ‘ The Fish’ short story competition. Along the way, she also managed to complete a Masters in Linguistics at Trinity College Dublin.
After her mother died in 2017, leaving her some money, the mother of four decided that rather than spending it, she would return to education. At first she planned to train as a primary school teacher in order to get ‘a sensible pensionable job’ but then she decided to follow her heart and do a Masters in creative writing. ‘I knew if I did the teaching I would never do the writing.’
She applied for the highly regarded programme at UCD and was accepted.
‘ The teaching was amazing,’ she recalls. That is possibly an understatement as her tutors included Anne Enwright and Sebastian Barry. Declan Hughes, who was a founder member of Rough Magic Theatre Company as well as a writer, supervised her thesis, which was the starting point for her novel.
Estelle has written reviews and non-fiction for the Sunday Independent, the Irish Times and others. She has won or been shortlisted in several competitions including Dalkey Creates, Penfro Book Festival, Verve Poetry Festival and IWC Novel Fair competitions. She is currently a paid reader for the RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Competition.
For many years Estelle has lived in The Tenters, an area of The Liberties in Dublin 8.
It’s a part of the city with a rich history, getting its name from when the Huguenots, who fled prosecution in France and came to Dublin, bringing with them the weaving industry. They stretched their fabrics to dry on metal hooks called tenters. Placenames such as Weavers Square and Mill Street bear testimony to its history.
Today, as back in the 17th century, The Tenters is a vibrant multi-cultural community and it’s this that provides the inspiration for Estelle’s first novel.
‘It’s about five young fellas in their last year at school. It’s a tough inner city school, a Deis school, a real cultural melting pot.’ she explains. ‘ There are three Dubs and two lads from the flats complex, one whose family come from Pakistan and another whose mother is from the Congo.’
The action centres round the day the boys mitch off school to attend the funeral of a homeless man whom they had befriended
Estelle jokes that she had her technical team advising her - her teenage son and his friends.
‘ There’s a lot of swearing it, drugs and violence,’ she says of the book which deals with life in inner city Dublin, warts and all.
With a release date for Spring 2021, ‘Revelling’ is already generating a lot of excitement in the book trade and has been described as
‘fast-paced, funny and eye-popping, descending from Trainspotting, White Teeth and Milkman in its portrayal of urban life in the twenty-first century’.
Publisher Antony Farrell of Lilliput Press says, ‘ We feel we pulled off a remarkable coup by signing Estelle Birdy and offering a pre-empt for her remarkable novel Ravelling, set in Dublin’s Liberties. Its diverse, captivating cast of characters, rendered in pin-sharp dialogue reminiscent of Roddy Doyle, leaves the reader with an immersive sense of multi-cultural Ireland coming to terms with the new dynamics of identity and change in the ferment of modern times.’
Estelle says that the deal is ‘ a dream come true’.
‘I had a run of good luck with short stories but this is life changing.’
‘When I was invited to the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair, I never imagined that within weeks I would be working with the wonderful people at high- quality Irish independent publishers Lilliput Press and have the added bonus of the inimitable Marianne Gunn O’Connor dealing with international rights for my book.’
She was awarded the deal on the basis of three chapters and she is now in the process of completing the book. ‘It’s much more substantial and it’s now down to the editing which is where the hard work begins.’